There's something very, very odd about one particular Trump social media booster named "Gary Forbes"

[Tommy_Carcetti]

8. Doing some amateur investigating work, it looks like the "Gary Forbes" person is real but...

.....that it's a professional alias for Gary Pasquariello who resides somewhere in New York state.

His Facebook page, last updated in 2012:

https://www.facebook.com/garyforbespianist?pnref=friends.search

He actually does have one publication to his name, being a co-author of a 2010 book, "Take This Job and (Shove It) Love It!", currently ranked #9,497,559 in sales at Amazon. His Amazon bio claims he's the CEO and co-founder of Nicholas-Forbes Inc. Advertising & Public Relations, that he consults with "Fortune 50 companies", and that he served as an adjunct professor for Marist College, Vassar College, The College of St. Rose, Bard College and State University of New York (Unspecified). Interestingly enough, on his Amazon page he openly offered his services to commission him to write your own biography, even offering to relocate to your hometown for the project.

http://www.amazon.com/Gary-Forbes/e/B0041KTIUI/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_2

All the evidence seems to point to this guy being some sort of shady con man. However, as it relates to Trump, there's still some unanswered questions. Either:

a) He was stealthily hired by the Trump campaign to run a shadow campaign to backchannel rumors that the official campaign could plausibly deny (for example, he's currently running slides addressing salacious rumors about Ted Cruz's wife, which Trump in his own Twitter alluded to but did not specifically divulge). If the guy actually does advertise PR services, it's not out of the question.

or

b) He's a lunatic who's obsessed with boosting Trump on social media but has absolutely no relation to the Campaign

or

c) He's an internet prankster who's getting a kick out of how many gullible Trump supporters are using him as an authority on Trump thinking he's affiliated with Forbes publishing.

Any way you cut it, he's not on the fringes of social media. No less than Ann Coulter's own official Facebook page has linked to Forbes as authority:

https://www.facebook.com/OfficialAnnCoulter/posts/831382086971607

If you look at his Twitter handle, he's re-tweeted by Trump supporters multiple times per hour per day:

https://twitter.com/search?f=tweets&vertical=default&q=%40gqforbes

So either Trump and his supporters are getting trolled, or they're using this guy to do their dirty tricks on social media.